Ukraine, Bulgaria agree on language provisions of education law

The agreement also provides for ensuring the right of representatives of Bulgarian national minority to study in and learn their native language.

Photo from UNIAN

Ukraine and Bulgaria have signed a Declaration on the implementation of the language clause of the law on education and guaranteeing the rights of the Bulgarian national minority.

The document was signed off by Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Liliya Hrynevych and her Bulgarian counterpart Krasimir Valchev, the press service of the Ukrainian education ministry reports.

The document provides that, along with learning the state language, representatives of Bulgarian national minority should have conditions for learning their native language and studying in their native language.

The Declaration also provides that Ukraine and Bulgaria will work on a new protocol on cooperation and exchange between the education ministries for 2019/2020, 2020/2021, 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 academic years.

She also said that Ukraine had already drafted a "road map" containing a list of legislative and other measures for the gradual implementation of the language clause in line with the relevant recommendations of the Venice Commission.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the new law on education, which entered into force on September 28, 2017, introduces a 12-year secondary education system in Ukraine with Ukrainian being used as the language of tuition.